Achille Talon: Difference between revisions
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{{work}}
[[File:Achille_Talon_1.jpg|frame|<small>That short guy he's leaning on? That's [[
''Hop !''
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Achille Talon, according his author, ''"knows everything and improvises the rest of it. Apart of this, he's generous, petty, pacifist, aggressive, progressist, bourgeois, selfless, jealous, intrepid and a bit of a coward. In sum, honest and brave just like you and me..."''
The comic book was translated for different markets in the 80's and published in English under the title ''[[Walter Melon]]'' with little success, as it was so specifically French by its main character and its language. Readers hardly understood Talon's favorite interjections, "hop !" and "bof..." which simply express positive/negative moods.
----
{{tropelist}}
* [[The Alcoholic]]: Achille Talon's father is one, but this is strictly [[Played for Laughs]]. He's remarkably good at holding his liquor.
* [[All Crimes Are Equal]]: In the end of ''l'Âge ingrat'', Grelot is arrested by [[The Longtarin|the cop]], just after his car exploded, for ''"scattering things on the public way, unpleasant behavior, setting a bad example to the younger generation, and, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|I'd almost forgotten]], kidnapping !"''
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* [[Balloonacy]]: Achille Talon's father escapes [[Meddlesome Patrolman|annoying cops]] by blowing into a breathalyzer balloon until it becomes an improvised blimp and he takes off with it.
* [[Berserk Button]]: Papa Talon losing his beer.
* [[Big Applesauce]]: In the album ''L'appeau d'Ephèse'' (it's a pun; "ça coûte ''la peau des fesses''" (
* [[Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce]]: Achille Talon once forced himself to ingest a dish made from all the most potent spices in the world, just so he could belch out the lethal digestion gasses right in Lefuneste's face.
* [[Blue Blood]]: The marquise Virgule de Guillemets, Achille's (platonic) fiancee.
* [[Break Out the Museum Piece]]: In order to fly to Polynesia on short notice and on a shoestring in ''Le Grain de la folie'', Lefuneste and Major Lafrime hire a veteran German [[WW 1]] pilot, who gets them there onboard his vintage triplane. Amazingly, the obsolete aircraft handily wins a dogfight against a modern jet fighter on the way.▼
* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: Achille Talon is probably the most [[Egregious]] offender in all French-Belgian comics. See [[Medium Awareness]].
▲* [[Break Out the Museum Piece]]: In order to fly to Polynesia on short notice and on a shoestring in ''Le Grain de la folie'', Lefuneste and Major Lafrime hire a veteran German [[WW 1]] pilot, who gets them there
* [[Butt Monkey]]: Achille and Lefuneste. Usually to each other.
* [[The Cavalry]]: Shows up on time to save the day in ''La Main du serpent'', something the [[Genre Savvy]] Achille matter-of-factly hangs a lampshade on.
* [[Cliff Hanger]]: Copiously lampshaded at the end of many a page in the longer stories, and sometimes even played straight.
* [[Da Editor]]: Goscinny. Albeit one who is happy to use axes and sledgehammers to reprimand [[Schedule Slip|late authors.]]
* [[Darkest Africa]]: Lampshaded in ''Le coquin de sort'' (and somehow parodies ''[[Tintin
* [[Depraved Dentist]]
* [[Doing
* [[Eagle Land]]
* [[Easy Amnesia]]: [[Shout
* [[Expy]]: Saint-Ogan's ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20190613221339/http://www.bedetheque.com/Couvertures/MonsieurPoche2_17082005.jpg Monsieur Poche]''.
* [[Fatherland]]: Zôtrland in the album ''Le Roi des Zôtres''
* [[Flowery Insults]]: Achille and Lefuneste often try to outdo one another in that regard.
* [[French Maid]]: Subverted; Virgule's maid Hécatombe is a huge woman built like a
* [[Friendly Enemy]]: Talon and his
* [[Gag Nose]]: [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] when Lefuneste making fun of Achille Talon's nose ends up having the latter hired to play the title character in ''Cyrano de Bergerac''.
** At one point, a crook wants to nail Achille in between the eyes with his gun. He aims, they have a silent
{{quote|
* [[General Ripper]]: The commanding officer of the US garrison in ''Le Grain de la folie'' is obsessed by the [[Yellow Peril]].
** To the point where he chews out a subordinate for almost stepping on a butterfly ([[Eagle Land|as American soldiers are the protectors of the weak and the small]]), then chews them out again when he realizes the butterfly is yellow.
* [[Genre Savvy]]: In ''La Main du serpent'', Achille Talon correctly surmises that the other survivors of the submarine wreck were scattered by the storm. In fact, as another character observes, there was no storm. But Achille Talon replies that in adventure stories, there is ''always'' a
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: "Rue de Manconne" seems perfectly innocent until you
** Naughty tentacles are invoked in a simile.
** "L'Etang Tacule" is a spoonerism for "The state screws you in the ass".
* [[Grievous Harm
* [[Hilarity Ensues]]: Every time Talon tries [[Epic Fail|to take an initiative]].
* [[Hurricane of Puns]]: And it ''never'' stops. The title character himself is a pun (from Achilles' Heel).
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* [[In Name Only]]: The obscure [[Animated Adaptation]] from the late '90s starred Achille (under his English name, Walter Melon) as a "hero for hire" who substituted for various action hero [[Expy|expies]].
* [[Intimidating Revenue Service]]: The plot of ''Ne rêvons pas'' is set in motion by the visit at Achille's place of a persnickety tax assessor. In a subversion of the trope, Achille's father, acting as his tax advisor, turns the tables on the assessor and assails him with a mountain of paperwork.
* [[Intoxication Ensues]]: Inverted. Lefuneste once claimed to have embraced the
** In another, Achille burns some old wood he found in the attic brought back by an ancestor who traveled to India. The entire neighborhood gets high on cannabis fumes.
* [[Latin Land]]: Platopabo ("Uglyplateau") in the album ''Le trésor de Virgule'' published in English as ''Magnesia's Treasure''.
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* [[Loyal Animal Companion]]: Pétard, Achille Talon's pet duck. Originally given as an ill-thought-out thank-you present, Talon resented it as such, but he eventually warmed to it.
* [[Mad Scientist]]: Dr Grelot and his three 600-year-old guinea pigs of longevity experience. The gag is that the victims of the experience... go mad.
* [[Mama Bear]]: Don't cross Achille's mother. [[Never Mess
* [[Mean Boss]]: [[Rene Goscinny]] (the creator of [[Asterix]]) is depicted as a [[The Napoleon|perpetually angry, short and violence-prone]] editor-in-chief.
* [[Meddlesome Patrolman]]: Agent Dussiflet or his peers get to slap a fine on Achille Talon, or drag him in handcuffs to the local police precinct, on more than one occasion.
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* [[Medium Awareness]]: Achille knows it often perfectly.
** Even giving conferences on the art of being a comic-book character.
* [[Multiple Reference Pun]]: Greg was an absolute master of it. One of his best examples is when Major Lafrime mobilizes his friends to put Talon into the election run and orders ''"colonne par cinq pour l'information"'' for launching a campaign. It makes a triple sense:
** Soldiers are ordered to be ''"en colonne par cinq"'' (line up five abreast) in the army;
** ''Cinq colonnes à la une'' (headline splashed across the front page) was a famous French information TV show in the 60's;
** The "5th column" was the overname for enemy spying during the [[WW 2|war]].
* [[The Napoleon]]: A caricature of René Goscinny, portrayed as the irascible midget-boss of ''Polite (!) magazine'' where Achille Talon works. As for Napoleon, many fans thought then that Goscinny ''was'' tiny. It could be as well an [[Homage]] to Goscinny's character [[Iznogoud]].▼
* [[Nightmare Dreams]]: What if the [[Big Bad|bad guy]] can ''provoke'' them to manipulate his victims?
* [[Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant]]: In ''Le Monstre de l'Etang Tacule'', a cartoonist draws [[Andre Franquin|grotesque and nightmare-inducing cartoons]], but he claims that his drawings are a faithful representation of reality.
* [[No More for Me]]: Papa Talon, once. Just once. Beer is a serious thing.
▲* [[The Napoleon]]: A caricature of René Goscinny, portrayed as the irascible midget-boss of ''Polite (!) magazine'' where Achille Talon works. As for Napoleon, many fans thought then that Goscinny ''was'' tiny. It could be as well an [[Homage]] to Goscinny's character [[Iznogoud]].
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Fo-Pli.
* [[Our Gargoyles Rock]]: Gargouilla-la-gargouille in ''L'âge ingrat''.
* [[Overly Polite Pals]]: In one comic, both continuously insist the other go first, but here the stalemate goes on until they're both late, leading to a Big Ball of Violence. Amusingly, this came about after Achille read a book on etiquette, and it turns out the other guy was the author.
* [[Papa Wolf]]: Papa Talon. Keeps an eye opened and a beer with the other.
* [[Police Are Useless]]: Greg didn't like them and projected a part of himself in Papa Talon who keeps a flag of the "Wild Anarchists Federation" in the attic.
* [[Punny Name]]: Does a character have a name? Then it's a pun: Achille Talon (Achilles Heel), Hilarion Lefuneste (hilarious the fatal/disastrous), Séraphin Dumonde (it's the end of the world), Hector Pedeau the auto mechanic (Torpedo, a kind of car), Doctor Fo-Pli (crease)... Talon even ''lives'' on the corner of the Rue Tilante (shiny) and l'Avenue Dumessie (the Coming of the Messiah).
** Séraphin Dumonde is another example of [[Multiple Reference Pun]]. Lefuneste suggests that he [
* [[Recycled in Space]]: In ''L'esprit d'Eloi'', Rheingard Van Daag's project is to shoot "[[Dracula]] {{smallcaps|In Space}}", [[Special Effects Failure|in a forest]].
* [[Ring Ring CRUNCH]]: In ''La Traversée du Disert'', Achille Talon tries to get an annoying transistor radio to shut up by smashing it against a rock ([[Percussive Maintenance|all it does is change the station]]) and feeding the pieces to his pet duck. Unfortunately, the radio keeps working from inside the duck's belly. And at the beginning of ''Viva Papa!'', Lefuneste gets his alarm clock to stop by striking it with a hammer.
* [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: The trademark of the comics. Lampshaded when an accountant complains to Achille Talon that the translation fees for his comics are double the usual rate.
* [[Shout
* [[Sim Sim Salabim]]: Lampshaded with the Nayghorjo-ray ("Nosethroatear") in ''[[Artifact of Doom|La main du serpent]]''. It's a modern country using submarines and a computer-selected crew for their operations... and a fakir.
* [[Sitcom Arch Nemesis]]: Achille and Lefuneste.
* [[Small Name, Big Ego]]: Achille, naturally. It's lampshaded multiple times, but building a giant statue of himself in his garden probably takes the cake.
* [[Spexico]]: Tapasambal (''"T'as pas cent balles ?"'' = "You got ten bucks ?") in the album ''Viva Papa''.▼
* [[Stealth Pun]]
* [[Stereotypes of Chinese People]]: Averted with Professor Fo-Pli ([[Punny Name|"crease"]]). Speaks perfect French, huge [[The Professor|specialist in chemistry and geology]], wears occidental outfit and quotes things such like ''"The wise man, and a few others before him, peremptorily told it: "better a little drawing than a long speech", and the television executives added: "adn it doesn't cost any more"."''
▲* [[Spexico]]: Tapasambal (''"T'as pas cent balles ?"'' = "You got ten bucks ?") in the album ''Viva Papa''.
* [[Strawman Political]]: The [[No Party Given|Communist-in-all-but-name]] leader of the opposition party in ''Viva Papa'', who speaks in hackneyed pseudo-Marxist cliches.
** Most politicians seen spring up and are all too ready to help at the mention of the word "voters".
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* [[Word Puree Title]]: The name of the series is actually supposed to be spelled ''Ach!lle Talon''.
* [[You Fight Like a Cow]]: Just about every fight has the participants make comments in a conversational tone, related to whatever weapon they're holding.
* [[Zero
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Belgian Comics]]
[[Category:Comic Books]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Comic Books of the 1970s]]
[[Category:Comic Books of the 1980s]]
[[Category:Comic Books of the 1990s]]
[[Category:Comic Books of the 2000s]]
[[Category:The Sixties]]
▲[[Category:Achille Talon]]
▲[[Category:Comic Book]]
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